WDC stock falls after Benchmark downgrades to sell

Western Digital Corp. shares are off 3.1% in premarket trading Tuesday after Benchmark analyst Mark Miller downgraded the stock to sell from hold. "While we believe Western Digital should be able to lever the supply short-fall into higher prices over the short-term, we also believe any price increases likely won't be enough to offset an expected 50% decline in NAND output during F1Q20 and they likely won't be sufficient enough to offset the 1H19 price declines during FY20," he wrote. "So while we see reasons for optimism, we think the recent pricing assumptions appear to be more than fully factored into the stock." Western Digital shares gained in the wake of Micron Technology Inc.'s better-than-feared earnings report in late June as well as last week, after WDC announced a power outage at one of its facilities that was expected to help relieve the industry's inventory buildup. Miller set a $40 price target on the shares, which have climbed 33% over the past month, as the S&P 500 has climbed 7.7%.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.